Into the Sun
by rrrpv
Summary: They must have been a match made in hell, because how could anything good ever come out of a prostitute loving a bitter and lonely girl? :: elsa/anna, non-incest. hunger games!au.


i feel like all my stories are about suicide or death or something...this is sending a bad message...life is worth living bc you get second chances if you make a mistake in life and you can never have a second chance if you kill yourself. so don't kill yourself!

**pairing:** elsa/anna

**release date:** march 29, 2015

**inspiration:** the hunger games, cynical!anna au (though this literally has nothing to do with said au you can find on elsannaheadcanons).

**warnings:** violence, torture, prostitution, children killing other children, mental instability, etc. / some ages have been changed

**disclaimer: **i don't own _frozen _or _the hunger games._ you can find this on ao3.

* * *

**Into the Sun**

.

.

_it's been a while since you last saw me_  
_one breaks down and the other ones fade_  
_these eyes can see the days break_  
_too late for the other's mistakes_

* * *

**part the first** :: atlas

"Your father is dead, Ms. Vetr."

President Coriolanus Snow doesn't at all seem the least sympathetic to his newest victor, his snakelike eyes twinkling in morbid satisfaction as the beautiful fifteen-year-old girl staggers under the news. Elsa wishes that she still had the longsword she had received in the arena with her, something to keep her from falling to the floor at what she's just heard. That her father — her warm, gentle, kind father with the small crinkles around the corner of his eyes and cheeks from smiling too much, despite the bleak world he lives in — is dead.

The man who has taught Elsa everything there is on how to be a simple hunter is suddenly wiped from this world, so unthinkably _easy._ She almost throws up what little there is in her stomach at the very thought, her hands trembling violently. It is as if his mere existence had never even mattered. Of course, it hadn't — _none_ of their lives did — but Elsa likes to pretend that she lives in a world where human life is indeed valued.

Elsa does heave at this point. Bitter bile pools onto the floor, dank and pungent, and she sinks to her hands and knees. She's shaking uncontrollably and she can't _stop._

No more weekly trips out into the middle of the mountains. No more good-hearted competitions to see who could make the better fire from scratch. No more pretend sparring out on the gently swaying branches of the pine forest with wooden sticks. And then Elsa blanches when she thinks of her loving mother and how she could be next...her mother, who drenches all of Elsa's favorite treats in chocolate when possible, because she knows that Elsa has a painfully sweet spot for the precious confection; her mother, who's always willing to assist the ill and sick people within her apothecary.

"Is it because I said no?" the younger woman croaks while the shock decreases to a numbing ache. It thunders hard against her rib cage, thumping an off-beat against her heart. Elsa can feel her stomach revolt once more.

"Elsa, my dear girl..."

The president chuckles to himself, noting gleefully at how Elsa flinches violently at the endearment. (Because that's what her father always used to say to her. Because Snow's voice sounds absolutely _nothing_ like how Papa used to say it, and Elsa wants to gouge the president's eyeballs out of their sockets and crush his head into a pulp.)

"I realize that guilt and grief may be one of the more natural responses to a loved one's death, but it was...ah, how should I say this...an _accident_."

She retches once more. Her curled fingers find no purchase on the slick floor.

_Liar,_ she wants to howl._ Lies. All lies._

"Your father was leaning too far off from his boat."

She rapidly blinks back burning tears and suppresses another heave, averting her blue gaze to the floor.

"...So, I can go back to my district then?" Elsa swallows now, both her spit and the words she wants to hurl at the conniving man in front of her. She closes her eyes and wills her breathing to calm. _One-two, one-two, one-two. Come on. One-two, one-two, one-two. You did this all the time in the arena. One-two, one-two, one-two. You can do it now._ She holds herself together because she cannot cry in front of this man. She refuses to allow him that satisfaction. "I wish to help my mother out for the funeral rites, sir."

A terrifying smile stretches out across Snow's face. "Of course," he murmurs. "It would be cruel of you to stay at the Capitol while the rest of your family is mourning. But just so we're clear" — and the man leans in so close, Elsa can smell the poisonous smell of blood and roses — "you will concede to our little business agreement, yes? I hear your older brother is going off on the boats next week and your mother —"

"_No!" _Elsa cries out in a harsh whisper, frantic that he dares to threaten Idunn. "Wh-whatever you need, President — I'll do it, I swear. I swear, please — _don't_ — I'll sleep with anyone you want —"

"You will serve the Capitol well then, Ms. Vetr." Snow leers at her (her body) before nodding once more. "You may leave now."

Elsa does. The door slips shut behind her soundlessly. She manages to keep her tears back for another step — two steps — but just as she's about the take her third, they burst out and don't stop coming.

And Elsa Vetr of District 2, victor of the Sixty-sixth Hunger Games, drops to her knees and breaks down in the middle of a hallway surrounded by walls of glass so clear it's almost as if they aren't there. She is a hundred flights above the multicolored strobe lights that flicker in the Capitol both day and night, a hundred flights up above raucous cheers and dolled-up citizens who take sadistic pleasure in watching twenty-four tributes fight each other to the death in an arena, and she wants to throw herself from a hundred flights up down onto the ground. Because if only for a few moments, she wants to know what it's like to fly through the air, alone and _free._

(Free, which is anything but this. Anything but this.)

:.

One week later — a disillusioning week filled with burying her lifeless father into a hole in the ground, with her mother clinging onto her taller, deceptively stable form and crying restlessly in her arms, with the angry glares she receives from her older brother that implies that Hans fully blames Elsa for their father's death — Elsa receives her first letter from President Snow.

It's a white cardstock, perfumed with the scent of roses, and it has nothing but a list of names with specific times next to them. Staring blankly at it, she quickly pockets the damning letter of her first "clients" and continues to hold the sobbing wreck that is her mother.

Elsa's world is crumbling around her, but all she can do is try and hold up what's left in hopes that it won't end up crushing everyone else she loves.

-—

**part the second** :: artificial caprice

Lunch time at school is such a fucking joke, because all Anna hears is this:

"She's with _another_ man. That's the fourth one this week!"

"God, she's so sexy...she makes it look like a _sin."_

"I'd go gay for her any time."

"I _love_ the color of Elsa's eyes..."

"Oh, gosh." Anna sweetens her voice to sound like the majority of the giggling girls, managing to catch their attention before before her timbre completely flattens into a bland tone. "Will all of you please just shut the fuck _up?"_

And then they'll harrumph and glare at the pretty blue-eyed girl before returning back to that stupid Capitol magazine that always has Elsa freaking Vetr right on the cover all the damn time. These girls can get reaped any year now and all they remotely care about is the hot woman with blonde hair? Anna bites her lip, tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. People like these aren't much better than those of the Capitol.

But then again, they're just acting how normal girls should — squealing over every good-looking guy (or girl, as it happens) who walks by. They're too busy basking in the present while Anna's too busy depressing herself over the future.

:.

Elsa doesn't really think of anything as she repeatedly fucks Merope Combe, usually placid wife of the Secretary of Defense, but a surprisingly wild animal in bed. With a sharp thrust, she scissors her fingers in a way that makes the woman underneath her scream without abandon, her gaudily-painted nails raking down the planes of Elsa's lean back to take in her rhythmic thrusts.

"Oh, Elsa, that was _fantastic_," Merope purrs into her ear a little while after, when they're both lying flat on their backs. Elsa noncommittally murmurs something incomprehensible and takes special pride in the fact that she doesn't once shiver in disgust the moment Merope crawls up her chest to place a wet kiss on her lips before she slowly dresses herself, smirking at an expressionless Elsa through her ridiculous pair of five-inched long purple eyelashes. "I'll see you next week?"

She doesn't respond. However, to avoid offending the woman and getting in trouble with Snow, Elsa lets her empty eyes linger at the woman's enhanced breasts before trailing them down to her hips. Merope looks exceptionally pleased once she looks back up. The gesture is mistaken for lust in her eyes, while all Elsa wants to do is vomit at the very sight of her.

She drops the money at the table before walking out with a last wink in Elsa's direction.

Elsa burns every single one of those bills.

:.

"Why so glum, chum?"

"I have a mentally unstable mother to take care of, and depending on what kind of day it is today, she may or may not throw a fucking wine bottle at my face," comes Anna's unenthusiastic response. Had it been anyone else, they probably would have been downright shocked to hear her speak like that out in the open, but Kristoff Bjorgman merely laughs.

Anna's always been given the stink-eye every time she's with Kristoff from the other females of this district and she honestly doesn't see the appeal sometimes. So, fine, Kristoff looks pretty handsome, but so do all the other sandy-haired males. What makes him stand out from all those males is the cute ten-year-old perched atop his strong shoulders. Every single day while walking home after school, Kristoff always places his younger sister on his shoulders, no matter how old she's getting, and Belle's too happy to refuse anyway.

"Only two more years!" Kristoff smiles down at her a little too cheerfully for her liking, pissing Anna off at how he's so chipper all the time. _Oh,_ that's right, he's got parents who adore him and Vanellope to death.

Hell, with parents like that, she'd be smiling all over the time too.

"Lucky you," Anna mutters under her breath, but loud enough for her best friend to hear. "I've still got four."

"We've all got to do our time," he says in a sing-song voice, causing Belle to chortle above him.

She gives him her best _fuck you_ look before rolling her eyes. "Christ, you are such a jack...idiot," she amends quickly only after realizing that the guy's baby sister is still there. After all, she doesn't want curse words infiltrating Belle's innocent brunette head.

"A _what?"_ Kristoff waggles his eyebrows mischievously.

"Uh...oh, thank god," Anna blurts out for the first and last time she sees her house a couple meters away from where they're walking.

"Hey, wear something pretty tomorrow, yeah?"

...And she's reminded of the reaping once more, even though she'd rather not think about the darkest day of the year.

"Something green that shows a lot of leg so that it'll distract me from that ever-present scowl on your face."

Ignoring the deep rumble of Kristoff's laughter, Anna reaches up and pulls at one of Belle's curly locks, watching the strand bounce a little before it settles back to its original place. She allows a smile to break across her face, grinning up at the little girl. Belle had always brought out the best in her, and she continues to do so now. Belle looks up from the book she's placed on top of Kristoff's head before smiling brightly at Anna, bidding her a cheerful goodbye. Anna waves back and makes sure to "accidentally" kick Kristoff's shin while she's walking towards her house.

Leaving Olaf at home with her mother is far from what Anna has ever wanted — that's why she thinks school is just a waste of time when all she's ever going to learn about is the Dark Days and its repercussions all over again. But for some reason, her mother never touches her little brother in a slight way. She just ignores her son, like he isn't even there.

Nevertheless, Anna's still glad to find the two year-old tyke sitting alone in their living room, trying his best to color neatly on a puppy-pictured coloring page. So, naturally, he doesn't color within the lines. But that doesn't look like a coloring pen —

In Olaf's chubby fingers is a gleaming piece of glass.

"_Olaf!" _Anna can't help but scream as she runs to the small child, gentling prying the sharp piece from his hands before swiftly hurtling the glass out through the nearby window. "Holy shit, kid," she adds after feeling her heart rate decrease from that particular scare, taking her clapping brother in her arms.

"Anna!" the toddler responds just as excitedly, immediately leaning in to rest his cheek against the crook of her neck.

Sprinkling a splatter of butterfly kisses all over his face to make him laugh — and it's one of the sweetest sounds in the world — her teal eyes narrow at the many shards of glass that are strewn all over the floor of their house. She places Olaf on the couch, orders him in a gentle voice not to crawl down onto the floor, and starts the tedious task of picking up each piece.

At night, Anna completely ignores her mother's pathetically wasted figure right outside her bedroom while she treks to her own, Olaf always kept close and in her arms while she's home. Hearing Olaf's even breathing from beside Anna in her small bed is the only way to help her fall asleep these days.

Hearing Aurora Rose's name being called out from the reaping bowl instead of hers the next morning does bring a small sigh of relief from her. Anna gets another year to live, and she's quite happy that she'll be alive to see Olaf turn three in a couple of months.

:.

There's absolutely no shame when Elsa suddenly presses her face into her pillow and cries.

She's supposed to have been out of the room by now, but she lacks the strength to summon any inch of his aching body to pick itself up and walk right out the door. Everything just_hurts_ and she can't help but curl her tall frame inward into a tightly wounded ball, her knees caged against her chest as she trembles violently atop the soiled sheets. It reeks of everything but purity — hard liquor, post-coital sweat, barbaric manipulation, dirty lies, even filthier secrets, and her own tainted tears.

Fisting her fingers into her violently tousled blonde hair, she opens her mouth and screams soundlessly into the feathery pillow, her unstable gasps stumbling in an uncomfortable choke as saline tears continue to stream down her face. Oh, god, what she would give to spend the rest of her life as an average citizen and hide herself away from all this...

Every single one of these victors, regardless of diverse upbringings, knows that no one ever really wins these Hunger Games. This is where disillusionment comes in to play, mindless of writhing sensibility and mindful of mental suffering.

Picking up the distinct and terrible sound of the door opening yet again — another client's arrival — she frantically tries to make her fetal position even smaller than it already was beforehand, praying that whatever god there is above will be kind to her and just let the bed swallow her whole. Elsa is a seventeen year-old woman with enough ghosts rattling around in her mind that no one that age should have in their possession. She wants nothing more than her mother right now, hopes that Idunn will come soon and will be with her so that Elsa can crawl onto her lap like she used to and let her kiss the tears away.

And she's had eight clients this night, much more so than the usual, and it seems as though their kind president is hell-bent on breaking her soon. She jerks her shoulders at the filthy fingers that proceed to touch her everywhere and _there_.

Elsa thinks that she should have taken the offered morphling when she had the chance.

:.

Insomnia is one of the worst monsters to deal with at night and it's something not even Anna can avoid. When you've spent countless years watching children you've never had the chance to know die on live television, how can anyone sleep? How can anyone keep a smile on their face and act like everything's going to be okay? She had tried to maintain such an attitude when she had first learned of these Games, and did so every single year up to the point Marshall, her twin brother, was reaped when they were both thirteen and then died in the bloodbath of the Games.

Stifling a sigh, Anna plants a tender kiss onto one of Olaf's sweet, adolescently-plump cheeks before tucking the covers around his minuscule frame and leaving the bed to venture out of their room. It's unpredictable during these hours of the nights, because her mother can either be wasting away in her own bedroom or wandering around the house just like Anna. And just to her infinite luck, Josephine Arendelle is currently sitting alone at their little kitchen table, staring blankly into space that's always been a bit of a norm in this house for her.

Anna's just about to turn around and leave when her mother says: "Anna? Sweetie?"

"Don't call me that, mother," Anna returns dully, slowly turning around to face Josephine. There isn't a wine bottle in her mother's dainty hands, but she doesn't know if that's a good or bad thing. Gesturing toward her with a sneer, she spits, "What? Not going to intoxicate yourself to fucking hell tonight?"

(Because, oh _god,_ this is the woman who dissolves into drunken fits of rage even when she knows she has a little three-year-old boy to take care of; this is the woman who drank herself into a hole she's never climbed out of since when Marshall's drained remains had been sent back to them in a plain wooden coffin and left a starving, grief-stricken Anna to fend for herself for three whole weeks in a freezing house; this is the woman who turned to alcohol to cope with the misery all around her because she's too fucking _selfish_ to face them head-on and force her life forward.)

Josephine merely blinks at her daughter's rough taunts, seemingly unaffected.

"So much like your father," she finally whispers, and Anna recoils at that. Because she hates it whenever Josephine tells her that. Because she doesn't — at _all_ — like being compared to that man. "Strong, independent..._beautiful_." Anna turns away, because this is the part where her mother becomes bitter. "Impulsive, rash, good-for-nothing son of a bitch —"

"Gee," Anna smoothly cuts in because she's heard this speech ten thousand times before. "I think I know why Dad left you for the Capitol." _Fucking unstable woman. Fucking crazy mother._ "He was smart enough to know what he was getting into, so he fucked you up and left you once before coming back to repeat the same process before leaving you again for good."

Dead silence. (But that really hasn't been uncommon in this house for a long while now.)

Her mother's fingers turn white as she clutches the edge of the table tightly, but in contrast to what Anna's preconceived, Josephine doesn't find something to throw at her daughter. Anna had expected the chair to come hurling in her direction by the end of all this.

Anna shrugs. "Oh, well. Goodnight, _Josie,"_ she over her shoulder apathetically, feeling satisfied at the way her mother takes in a sharp intake of breath at the well-known nickname that hasn't been used since _he_ was here.

And as the young girl stalks back into her room, she can't help but wonder sometimes. She knows she hates everything that has to do with the damn Capitol, and her father even more for leaving their family for one of their ritzy jobs, but there are the rare moments where she wishes that her father could at least have had the decency to take Olaf and her along with him when he left.

:.

If Idunn is ever given a hint of what Elsa does, what she indulges in to cope with her job, she would have been severely disappointed. Hell, her father's probably rolling around in his grave every time Elsa's coerced to either fuck someone or spread her legs.

The bar is thankfully empty, allowing her to be the broken remnants of the woman she once was instead of person she barely recognizes today in favor of what the Capitol wants. She needs the strongest alcoholic drink this place has to offer, and although the whiskey tastes like smoke and wood bursting on her tongue, it does nothing to dull whatever she's feeling.

"Hey there, ."

The voice sounds just as tired as the owner looks, but Will Scarlet still looks handsome, like the sun sits and rises on his ass. Probably because he's almost always hopped up on crack or something, but that isn't Elsa's problem. He's a District 1 victor from the Games that have occurred in the decade before this one. What more, his sister, Lily, coincidentally wins the Games right after her older brother. Will and Lily are one of the few people who understand what Elsa's going through, because they're trapped in the same exact situation as well.

Elsa grunts her greeting and takes another hearty shot. "How's Alice?"

It's always been a sore subject for Will to talk about, but he does nevertheless. Alice Tremaine is a victor of the Hunger Games who's famous for all the wrong reasons. She would have been a sex slave of the Capitol too, had it not been for the fact that Alice's been rendered absolutely crazy after winning what is deemed as "The Failed Games." The poor, little mad girl of Panem.

"She's good," is Will's quiet answer, sounding more like his true self despite the glitter all over his body. "Tiana called me earlier—she said that Alice keeps getting these weird 'visions,' but they're harmless, really."

"Visions? Like an oracle or a prophet or something?"

Will chuckles, because it surely must sound ridiculous. "Yeah, but at least she's not screaming her head off every time someone touches her by accident." Realizing where this conversation is headed, Will chirps to a more happy tune. "Do you wanna go to the auction house with me tomorrow? They're auctioning off this really antique car of the pre-Panem days. A convertible Maserati Spyder. It's _red_."

Elsa only arches her eyebrow. "So?"

"So? I have to get it, Els!" Will starts pouting at her, lower lip stuck out and all.

She doesn't have any appointments that day, so Elsa's been granted permission to leave with Will for the auction house the next day. And while hoards of Capitol citizens are torn from staring brazenly at the two beautiful victors in their midst while yelling out random prices to bargain for the antique cars, Will whispers into Elsa's ear about something even more dangerous than the Hunger Games.

Something about a rebellion, and how whores like them can contribute to the cause.

Secrets.

:.

Kristoff is the one the catch onto Anna's habit. A habit where the teal-eyed girl doesn't actually pay attention to the gory details of the annual Games, but when the interview with the Head Gamemaker airs on, her orbs are practically glued to the television set.

"Oh, _my,"_ he jeers at her good-naturedly, nudging his knee against hers. "Does pretty little Annie finally have a _crush_?"

Forgetting that both Belle and Olaf are in the room, Anna slaps him upside the back of his head. "Shut the fuck up, Bjorgman," she mumbles, but her eyes never once leave the bright screen of her TV or the attractive Head Gamemaker.

:.

There's a deep snort the moment Elsa walks into secluded room. "About time, Elise Vector."

"...Elsa Vetr," the younger woman corrects tersely, causing the man in front of her to roll his eyes.

Since winning his Games all those long years ago, Eugene Fitzherbert's lovely companion has always been and always will be alcohol. He hasn't been sober one day in the entirety of his lonely life as a victor of District 11. But for some oddly-veiled reason, this joke of a drunk is the one in charge of the classified rebellion, along with Shang, the quiet and intellectually brilliant victor of District 3.

"Will tells me you want in," Eugene stares probingly at Elsa, which is a remarkable difference to the hazy state of intoxication that's always lingering around his aging orbs.

Her eyebrows furrow above her icy blue eyes. "Isn't this room bugged?"

"If it were, do you think we'd be talking in the open like this, ice queen?" Eugene retorts back sarcastically before gesturing over to his partner with a small wave of his hand. "Shang's got it covered. Anyway, Will says you're willing to get secrets for us." When Elsa nods in affirmation, the older man settled back in his chair. "You can't tell anyone about this."

Elsa bristles, her eyes sharpening. "Do I look that stupid to you?"

Before Eugene has the chance to fire back a retort, Shang beats him to it. "Of course not, Elsa. We're just taking certain precautions, that's all. Everything's all set — trust me — and while that may be the case, we're still looking for someone to represent the rebellion as a whole."

"A symbol," Eugene continues on in a flat tone, as though this entire thing has been rehearsed. "Someone to be our Mockingjay." A brief passing of silence hovers over the three victors as Eugene pours himself another drink. "A couple years ago, we had a girl that was fucking perfect for the job. We trained her and everything. But she did what stupid girls did best."

"What happened?" Elsa inquires and the question causes Eugene to scowl his best scowl, but she notices that he takes another long draft from his tumbler at this.

"She fell in love and got herself fucking killed before the rebellion could even start."

And before Elsa can ask who it was, Eugene grimaces, clams up, and Shang looks at her sadly.

"Megara Grace."

-—

**part the third** :: fan the flames

Anna finally gets a job a few weeks after she turns sixteen. It's a dangerous job at the large power plant factory in District 5, but she's always been particularly good at dealing with electricity, for whatever reason. With a job like this, it's normal for at least one person to die in this type of environment. Even so, she'll continue to work until she has enough money for stability, so that Olaf will never have to apply for tesserae.

:.

"Tell me a secret."

"I don't know, Elsa. Can't I just give you...?"

A wet smacking sound of lips meeting each other. "I don't want your money." She does something else that has his whole body arching to meet hers, amorously throwing a leg back onto her hip. "I promise I can keep a secret."

"O-Okay." There's a strained giggle before he starts again. "Well, you know that my wife's on the board that funds the Hunger Games every year..." He grunts when Elsa dips her mouth to the sweet spot of his throat. "She told me that sometimes...sometimes the process of reaping children aren't done randomly."

Elsa pauses, horror coiling at her stomach.

"But you can't tell anyone though, my dear Elsa. If the rest of the Capitol knew, why, there'd be an uprising at the injustice of it all, and we don't want that now, do we?"

:.

There aren't many times in Anna's life where she receives news that will shock her numb. So when Pisces Robespierre reaches her orange bejeweled nails into the reaping bowl, pulls out a name, and calls out _Belle Bjorgman_ in that fucking Capitol accent, she doesn't feel like she's ever going to breathe again. Except she does, and it's a painfully expelled intake of air as she registers the fact that darling twelve year-old Belle, _their_ Belle, is actually going to contest in the Seventy-second Hunger Games.

She hears a shrill scream from the back of the crowd, and that might have been Mrs. Bjorgman, but she isn't too sure because she's turned to see the expression on her best friend's face. Kristoff looks as though he's about to cry. But then determination creeps onto his features because it doesn't really matter anymore on who the boy tribute will be. Kristoff will volunteer in the boy's place for the sole purpose of keeping his baby sister alive, and when the two siblings are at the top two, she knows that Belle's the one returning home.

But there's the possible chance the two of them could die in the arena, no matter how determined Kristoff is. The Bjorgmans are good people and they don't deserve to lose both of their children in a matter of two or three weeks. Anna's not willing to take the chance.

"_I volunteer!"_

Anna can't even look at Kristoff in the eye while she steps out of her age group and marches up to the aisle behind Belle, who gives out a startled sob before throwing her skinny arms around Anna's frame, murmuring _no, no, no,_ and preventing the older girl from coming up to the stage. Belle's a smart girl and it's been a long while since anyone from District 5 has ever won, so she can put the dots together in her head. She doesn't think Anna will win, and as much as that should be slightly offensive, Anna secretly agrees with her.

"Belle, let go," Anna whispers to her sharply, tugging her elbow out from the vice-like grip. Kristoff is the one to detach the screaming, sobbing blonde girl away from her, lifting his mournful gaze up to Anna's green blue one.

There's a secret message being passed between their shared gaze, something that goes along the lines of: _Don't you fucking dare volunteer, Bjorgman. I can handle this by myself._

With a scowl planted firmly her face, because there's no way in _hell_ she's going to be seen smiling through this, she jumps up to the stage lithely and marches to stand by the district's stupid escort. Josephine's face is paler than usual, eyes wider than Anna's ever seen, and Olaf is crying quietly in his mother's arms.

"How lovely!" Pisces exclaims. She brings the microphone towards the slender, freckled girl. "What is your name, my dear?"

She crosses her arms, her irises tightening dangerously. "Anna _fucking_ Arendelle." The girl doesn't care about Pisces' loud gasp at her expletive or the gawking crowd below her, she's too busy glaring straight at the cameras.

When Pisces calls out Gaston Bete's name and Kristoff keeps his promise by not saying a word, Anna relaxes her shoulders because there aren't going to be any more surprises after that. What's done is done — she's a tribute.

The Bjorgmans are all there to visit her at the Justice Building. Each one spends an amount of time crying in Anna's arms, thanking her through an abundant amount of tears, with the exception of Kristoff, who only gives her a haunted look and whispers in her ear: "Archery."

Kristoff knows that she's a prodigy with a bow, but she hasn't touched that weapon since her father left her years ago. He's the one that taught her how to shoot and fight with it, after all.

The moment her family comes in, Olaf stumbles on his little legs to get himself in her arms.

(She doesn't know why, but the sight of her brother running like that makes her want to sob for the first time in years.)

"You have to win, _please_, Anna," he begs, tugging at her stony heartstrings, tears dripping down his cheeks. "Mommy — Mommy says that people die and they don't go home. That people have to kill each other to go home to their mommies and daddies."

Anna narrows her eyes at Josephine. "You said _what_?" she grits through her teeth as she juggles Olaf in her arms, unable to comprehend that her mother had told Olaf all those things while she was either at school or at the power plant factory.

But Olaf frantically pats her cheek to get his sister's attention. "Anna, you can kill people, it's okay." (Anna wants to let loose a hysterical sound at these horrible words that are tumbling from her brother's mouth like leaves caught in a hurricane.) "You can go home. I won't be mad at you, sissy. I won't. You're the bestest, Anna. You can beat them. You come home or else — or else —" the rest of his threat is muffled by his tearful cries.

She doesn't want to talk to Josephine, not after realizing what she's been telling Olaf all this time, because she's too hung up on the fact that her baby brother has just suggested that she _kill_ someone in order to come back home to him. He's only four, for fuck's sake, and the terrors of the Hunger Games are already beginning to insert themselves permanently in his young life.

Josephine understands that her daughter refuses to say anything to her at this point, but Anna surprisingly doesn't fight it when the older woman pins a circular golden mockingjay pin that Anna has never seen her mother wear before onto the collar of her dress.

"Your father gave it to me," Josephine murmurs in a lifeless way of explaining herself. "All I ask is that you wear it to the arena."

Hours later on the train, ignoring the quiet sniffles that belong to Gaston Bete, Anna presses her forehead against the window pane and tries not to think about the way Olaf has screamed at her when the Peacekeepers finally barge in and rip the family apart.

(_"No, Anna, no, no, no, no, no! Wait, mister, I didn't get to say 'I love you' to Anna yet! Put me down, mister! No, no, no...!"_)

:.

"If you're planning on making me look like a power plant worker," Anna drawls, given the memories she has over the years of District 5 tributes coming out of the Opening Ceremonies looking like idiots in their costumes, "you should have told me sooner. I would have brought my work uniform with me."

Ariel smiles at the dry joke. "I think Panem has seen enough of power plant workers, don't you think?" Her stylist has the strangest shade of purple eyes — the only alteration made to her face to assert herself in the Capitol — but she doesn't look as grotesque as the other ones around here. "District Five has been known to harness the energy of the earth and sky in order to power this nation, yes? That means all types of power — solar, nuclear, and in our case, electric.

"Electricity, of course, implies technology." Ariel continues to walk around Anna's robed body. "But we're going to focus on _just_ electricity, and perhaps a little lightning."

"You're going to make electrocute me?" Well...it hasn't been done before, she'll give Ariel that.

"Dear, you'd be electrifying," Ariel quips, nodding serenely to the younger girl's question. "I watched the way you volunteered for that little girl and the way you introduced yourself as well," she adds with a gentle laugh. "Let's just say it _sparked_ creativity for me."

"I probably shouldn't have said that on live TV." But Anna doesn't look the least apologetic for her actions.

"Ah...each to their own." And there's something about those strange purple eyes that make Anna feel warm and cozy, as though she's huddled inside a fuzzy blanket right next to a fireplace. Ariel reaches out to touch the other girl's long hair, strawberry blonde strands that reach to the elbows. She twirls a dark strand around her finger. "Anna, do you have any attachments to the length of your hair?"

Anna narrows her eyes.

_What does that have to do with anythi — _oh.

:.

Elsa can't tear her eyes away from the girl.

In fact, none of the Capitol citizens can take their eyes off the District 5's chariot because the tributes are literally lighting up the entire city as their chariot strolls down the City Circle. Or at least, _she_ is.

She remembers the strawberry blonde as the "girl-who-cursed-while-saying-her-name," and that moment has been a rather funny one in her opinion. The girl isn't a power plant and she sure as hell isn't a power plant worker — she embodies electricity. She is wearing a simple black brocade dress, but it's glowing in every way that disables it from its simplicity. Not to mention the fact that patterned in that dress are many slender streaks of lightning that look as though they're _moving_ and cackling against the material.

The girl's strawberry blonde hair is let down and whipping in the breeze — and god, Elsa loves her hair so much like that — and some strands are dramatically sticking out in perfunctory directions. Her stylist has weaved a certain something into the strands of her hair so that every time her red tresses flutter against the wind, they somehow manage to spark with electricity.

But her _eyes_ — Elsa feels her throat clog up the moment those impossibly bright, blue-green eyes stray in her direction. Her mind goes blank and all she's really doing is just staring. But then she remembers that she's around people she knows, so she sends the girl a saucy wink.

Imagine her surprise when the strawberry blonde mouths the words, _Go fuck yourself, _before winking back.

:.

_Of course they're not paying attention, _Anna thinks darkly to herself as the Gamemakers pile around the food that's just arrived. No, why on earth would they pay attention to the girl that has a chance of dying in the arena when there's a wonderfully roasted pig in sight?

She's just shot a volley of arrows at the targets from every possible meter mark and they've all hit the intended bulls-eyes. Feeling a little more than frustrated, Anna notches three arrows together and directs it at the banquet table. The arrows fly from her possession before she can stop it, one of the arrows skewering the apple at the pig's mouth and forcefully pinning it to the wall behind it while the other two arrows are deeply embedded in the pig's stomach.

Ignoring the varied shouts of alarm, she draws another arrow from the quiver and aims at a fork that one of the Gamemakers was holding. The aerial weapon rips the fork out of the man's trembling fingers knocking the eating utensil to floor with a loud _clang_ as the arrow continues its short trek until it hits the wall.

The Head Gamemaker finally turns around to acknowledge the female tribute from District 5 when he halts to a visible stop, his eyes widening in disbelief at the young girl. His orbs, _teal-green-blue_, mirror the myriad ocean colors swirling in her own uncannily.

"Hey, Dad," she mutters all too quietly for anyone to hear, but Head Gamemaker Agdar can definitely read the words forming on her lips.

:.

For the first time in forever, the Mentors' Lounge is deadly silent. There are no talks of sex, booze, or drugs; no traded insults or thinly-veiled jibes thrown at each other because this is the very moment that changes _everything_.

The second Anna throws her entire body on top of a dying Gaston Bete, her last opponent, using her back to shield those ungodly muttations from shredding Gaston to pieces, the District 5's computer nearly crashes at how many sponsors Anna's getting per minute. The Gamemakers aren't calling off the muttations, because while they want Anna to be saved, they still want a fantastic finale.

While Lily is tightly gripping onto Will's elbow, Anna's mentor is clicking away at the computer with all her might. It's only a brief matter of time before the arena's sky is loitered with hundreds of parachutes — all for the girl who resembles light itself.

No one can argue with the fact that the Seventy-second Games will always be remember for all time. One minute, Anna's protecting her dead district partner with everything she's got, all the while grabbing a couple parachutes here and there, and the next she's swiftly outrunning the fanged muttations, leading them deep into the forest with apparently no plan in mind.

But then she does something frantically to the ground, digging and cutting something in the dirt, and then —

The whole fucking arena blows up.

Explosion, fire, chunks of debris, and Lily's startled scream combined aren't coherent or loud enough to break through the thunderous noise that is a commingled mixture of the mentors and the Capitol citizens that are all watching hungrily from outside. Elsa's hyperventilating and gripping her platinum blonde hair like a deranged person, incapable of believing that Anna's actually _blown up the damn arena_. The whole nation of a shaken Panem shifts once more when Anna Arendelle crawls out from the utter disaster, caked in ash and blood, but still alive. She faints in the middle of all that mess.

Once the cheers have died down, once everyone can actually catch their breath again and while citizens and mentors alike are yelling for the hovercraft to just come already, Eugene leans over and whispers to Shang:

_"That's_ how you start a revolution."

-—

**part the fourth** :: burning in the skies

Eyes the color of blue ice linger over the well-disguised, depressed slump of freckled shoulders. Elsa can recognize a fake smile any day, and while the attempt is worthwhile, she can see right through Panem's newest victor. Her teal irises shine acerbically at the drastically surgically-altered people that make up the Capitol population, but she's forced to reign her ire in when they ask to take a picture or inquire just exactly how she managed to blow the arena up.

Anna's staying silent on the matter though, feigning that it was all just a mistake before she smoothly moves the subject on towards something else. No one but Elsa notices it when Anna slips out onto the balcony when the Capitol officials and sponsors become more increasingly drunk as the night wears on. Politely kissing the man she'd been talking with on the mouth, Elsa shoves her hands into a pocket and disappears behind the same door the girl's gone through as well.

Her head is cradled in her hands, elbows pinpointed at the stone railing of the balcony, body hunched forward. The victor's crown is off her tumble of strawberry blonde waves, resting on the railing just a few inches away.

She doesn't turn around at the sound of her footsteps.

"Well, if it isn't Elsa Vetr," she says emotionlessly, head still in her hands so that her words come out a little muffled. "Oh, wonderful. What did I do to have you grace me with your delightful presence?"

Elsa smothers her laugh expertly. "Just offering my congratulations to our newest victor, of course."

For a moment, Elsa thinks she's said the wrong thing, considering the moment of silence lapsed between the two of them. But then Anna picks her head up and turns to look at her. "You're from District Two, right?"

Elsa hums in affirmation.

"You...make things from rocks, right?"

Elsa has to hide another smile at Anna's crude description of masonry. "I suppose so."

"And there are mountains," Anna continues.

"...Yes?" Elsa's eyebrows have now furrowed into a polite and blonde line. She is no longer sure where Anna is going with this.

"What do the mountains look like?"

Despite the odd question during this time, Elsa perks up because she loves talking about her home. "Well, if you stand on a small incline or something similar, you'd think the mountain range stretches as far as you can see it, maybe past the horizon," she begins softly. "With certain lighting, it changes color from silver and gray to blue and purple. There are times where you can't tell the mountains from the sky, especially during twilight. And in the winter, when it snows, that's when they're the most beautiful." Elsa smiles. "The mountains are capped with drifts, and they reflect the sunlight. Sometimes, you can see them almost melting into the color of the mountains themselves, going from the purest white to dark gray. The feeling...when you're on the mountains, the air is cold but comforting, and the smell of winter is a scent like no other."

"And what does winter smell like?"

Elsa shrugs. "Winter. You'd have to experience it for yourself."

"Ah. Beats my district." Anna crosses her arms around her waist, staring out into the lights of the city ahead. "All I ever smell are the fumes and smoke of the power plant factories."

"You should visit District Two." Elsa leans her hip against the railing to smile charmingly at the beautiful girl. Minor dismay fills her, because she knows that Anna won't be able to escape the oppression of forced prostitution, not with gorgeous cheekbones like those. And those freckles are simply adorable to look at. "I'll even let you stay in my house."

"Wow, all the more reason to go!" Anna declares in mock-enthusiasm and something about her voice makes Elsa laugh. The redhead's lips even quirk up for a tiny moment before she sobers up again. "My family's going to die."

She jerks at the sudden statement. "What? No, don't say — you don't know that —"

Anna rubs her hands over her face before her fingers come to pull at her hair. "Fuck, I'm so _stupid_. Why did I blow that damn arena up?"

"You don't know for sure —"

"Why do you think Eugene is always drinking, Elsa? The guy's fucking _miserable_. Remember how he made the mistake of making all the Gamemakers look like idiots in front of everyone in Panem with that force field stunt he pulled? Yeah, I just did the same thing."

Elsa purses her lips, because she knows that and the _real_ reason why he stumbles around drunk all the time. And is it terrible of her to think that Anna's two hundred percent dead on right?

Elsa doesn't really think much when her arms shoot out to gather the poor girl into her arms for a hug. Anna puts up a fight for a couple of minutes, cursing her name and pushing against her chest, but then she thinks of her baby brother and her eyes begin to glaze over.

That gesture sort of frightens Elsa — because she's seen that look in Alice's eyes many times before the blonde retreats off into her own little world of confused wonderland — and she holds her tightly, her long fingers stroking patterns in Anna's soft hair. The newest victor is still staring off into space, but she vaguely concludes that this is quite comfortable. They've known each other for less than ten minutes, but _this_, whatever this is, may just be a beautiful possibility between them that's about to be conceived.

"Ah, I see you've heard the news then."

Both victors jump away from each other at President Snow's intruding voice.

"What news?" For a gnawing reason, Anna doesn't feel like she should be asking him. She already knows.

"I just received news from your district mayor that your house has been burned down," Snow informs her in that dreadfully cold tone of his, and even Elsa knows what's coming next. "Unfortunately, your mother and brother were in the house during the time of the fire and they couldn't escape it. Please accept my sincerest apologies for this tragedy, Miss Arendelle."

Anna takes diminutive pride in the fact that she doesn't at all break into tears at his announcement. She doesn't stagger like Elsa's done when she found out about her father's death. For an imperceptible moment, her eyes _burn_ with hatred and loathing and disgust for the small, snake-like man before her. Elsa notices this, and perhaps Coriolanus Snow sees it as well, but it doesn't matter anymore because she's got nothing else to lose at this point.

"Thank you for telling me in person. It was so _kind_ of you to do that."

Elsa has to actively keep her jaw from dropping. This doesn't sound like the girl who's just lost her entire family. No, this sounds more like the girl who fucking cursed while saying her name in live television. It almost sounds like she's mocking him.

Snow narrowed his eyes shrewdly at the girl. "You're quite welcome, Miss Arendelle." He must have been expecting waterworks from the teal-eyed girl. "Excuse me," he adds in a curt murmur, turning around to walk back inside.

Elsa wraps her fingers around Anna's.

Anna doesn't grip her hand back.

:.

_OLAF ARENDELLE_

That's all it says on the curved slab of stone. It doesn't say what a loving son he had been, what an even more wonderful brother he had been — _the only positive gift in her pathetic life_ — nothing. It just looks like an ordinary piece of stone with a random boy's name carved onto it, not a respected tombstone. This is the grave that District 5 has issued her after her Victory Tour. Her mother's looks similar, but in contrast, she feels as though a grave filled with nothing but a name fits Josephine the most.

She hasn't been anything to Anna other than the woman who shared a house with them.

(_"Did you hear? I heard the Head Gamemaker's gone."_

"_Yeah, he disappeared without a trace right after the Games..."_

"_I wonder who's big enough to fill Agdar's shoes, eh?"_)

Besides admiration, Anna's been treated with obvious trepidation because the whole world pretty much knows that given wires and a couple of daggers, she can blow up anything. Kristoff is distressed that he hadn't been able to get to her family on time, but their deaths weren't on her best friend's fault. It isn't Belle's either, though that doesn't stop the tears from filling up those grey eyes. She can't live in this place anymore, so seconds after she boards the train to the Capitol, she puts the key to her Victor's House in Kristoff's hand.

:.

Once Elsa opens the door, Anna blurts out: "I came here for the mountains, not you, ice queen."

Elsa's heart beats just a little faster at the sight of the plain duffle bag by Anna's feet. The fact that Anna's even _willing_ to take up her offer and stay with her for a week or so makes her break out into a brilliant, though childish grin.

"Then come on in, feisty pants."

_"What_ the fuck did you just call me?"

:.

She's never seen the mountains before.

But by the time she manages to catch the glimpses of the majestic peaks gleaming against the gentle rays of the sun, she thinks it's the most beautiful thing she's ever seen, and for the first time since her Games, she's thankful that she's made it out of the arena alive to see such a wonderful sight. Elsa's words from long ago doesn't even do the tall mountains enough justice and there's the sudden yearning to sprint across that wide expanse and get utterly lost in the craggy, off-white and gray cliffs.

Olaf would have loved the mountains.

Anna sighs, wiggling her toes into the warm wood of Elsa's porch. She relishes the sensation of the smoothness beneath her feet before leaning forward, looking at the mountain ranges again. She's nibbling on a chocolate-coated cookie because Elsa has this crazy obsession with chocolate (not that Anna's complaining; she's acquired quite an attachment to the sugary sweet herself) and she needs her mother to chocolate-drench practically _everything_ other than major meals before she can eat it. But Idunn Vetr is kind and loving and just a beautiful person inside and out — she'll always coat her youngest daughter's snacks with chocolate and love, and Elsa will always be in the kitchen to help her.

It's a kind of love that's been deliriously absent in her relationship with Josephine Arendelle. The first time her father left their family had been a terrible set of years to follow. The second time he left was a little bit better, only because her mother had been pregnant with Olaf. She wonders if there are any universes out there that have a preferably sober Josie who likes to brush another Anna's hair or paint her nails with her or do the general stuff that mothers and daughters are supposed to do together.

Deep in thought, she doesn't realize her cheek is being pinched until she hears Elsa's chuckle from beside her. And she's not just pinching Anna's damn cheek — she's holding onto it and wiggling her flesh back and forth.

"Stop it, you stinker!" Anna swats at her hand sharply while stifling the unbidden spate of laughter that threatens to burst out. She pushes the blonde away from her until Elsa bounces back to stand next to her on the porch, a smile bright on her lips. Anna stuffs the rest of the chocolate-coated cookie in her mouth and mumbles through the confection of sugar and crumbs, "Your mother's pretty awesome."

"She is." Elsa doesn't have to pretend to deny it because she _knows_ Idunn is one of the best mothers out there. A gentle smile spreads across her face. "I wish you could meet my brother too, but there's no way he'll agree to coming here." And then the smile drops off of Elsa's face — much to Anna's chagrin — because for the first time ever, the platinum blonde actually sounds _bitter._

"What happened?"

Should she even tell her? They've only known each other for...however long, but Elsa finds that it doesn't matter.

Impulsively, her fingers stretch out to latch around Anna's, palm pressing against palm, digits overlapping in a soft embrace. Anna doesn't look down to see their intertwined hands, because the sunset that's minutes away from embarking is far more important, and Elsa thinks worriedly that she's moving way too fast for the redhead. Worrying her bottom lip with her white teeth, she begins to pull away her hand from her Anna's, only to be conscious of the way Anna's sun-kissed fingers are molding themselves permanently around her own pale ones.

And it's the first time Anna's properly held someone's hand, boy or girl. She's never been this close to even trying it with Kristoff.

And there's no way in hell she's going to admit out loud that she likes holding Elsa's hand.

Biting back a blushing smile, Elsa tells her everything. Her time in the Games, the real reason behind her father's death, why Hans moves out of the house after seeing so many magazines with Elsa and a constantly different man or woman on it, and finally, her nighttime job. Elsa doesn't, however, tell Anna that she manipulates certain people into sleeping with her in order to get secrets about the Capitol and Snow. She's a terrible person, and she knows this, but do all villains get to hold hands with pretty girls like Anna?

When Elsa finishes, Anna is silent. She's sat down at the steps of the porch, legs sprawled out and elbows supporting the brunt of her weight. She's looking out into the sunset, casting bloody streaks of crimson and orange out into the sky. Elsa has to actively keep her jaw from falling agog because outlined in fiery light, Anna looks as if she's acquired an aura made of the sun itself.

Then Anna hugs her, and Elsa's shocked for all of two seconds at the warm arms wrapping around her torso before she latches on, leaning her head against silky strawberry tresses and breathing in the faint scent of honeysuckle that always seems to linger around the redhead.

Anna must have heard the surprised sound Elsa made when she initially hugged her, so she offers as a means of explanation, "When my...little brother...was feeling down, I'd always give him a warm hug."

It's such a simple sentence, but Elsa can't help but feel how _vulnerable_ it actually is — like Anna's peeling a piece of her armor away and showing her what's inside, a part of her life that is so painfully _personal_ that Elsa almost cries. Because Anna _trusts_ her with this information. Anna _trusts_ her enough to tell her that her little brother liked warm hugs, and she's _giving_ her a warm hug now, and — and —

Anna pulls away an inch, only to give Elsa a small, honest smile. "He liked warm hugs. A lot."

"Oh," Elsa breathes, curling her arms possessively over Anna's. "...I like warm hugs, too. A lot."

Anna hums happily and leans against her hair once more.

And this is the moment that Elsa Vetr of District 2, victor of the Sixty-sixth Hunger Games, realizes that she is falling and falling _hard _for Anna Arendelle, because Anna Arendelle is the sun incarnate and Elsa would willingly give herself over to her in a heartbeat.

:.

"If you can be anything at all, what would you be?"

Anna thinks for a moment. "A tree."

Elsa can only stare at her. "...Why?"

"Because you don't have to do anything. You just stay there, that's it."

"But you'll eventually get cut down to make paper —"

"So? At least I don't have to compete in some stupid ass game to kill off innocent children." Pause. "What about you? I'm guessing you'd be a bird, then?"

"Wow, that's so _original_, feisty pants. Thank you."

"You don't have to throw a hissy fit."

Ignoring her. "I think I'd like to be someone who matters. Someone important, you know?" A queen, perhaps.

Anna twiddles her thumbs. "You don't think you matter?"

"Not in this world — no."

"Well, you..."

_You fucking matter to me, ice queen._

:.

The drunk of District 11, Eugene, tells her that she's a fool for falling in love at this time.

Elsa shrugs, and doesn't comment upon the subject any further.

She knows.

:.

Eugene may use wine as a crutch, but Anna thinks the old man is much smarter than that. It's there, sparkling through his hazy eyes, even if most other people automatically smell the booze oozing from his breath first.

"Megara Grace fucked everything up before it had a chance to start." That's a terrible beginning, but Anna wisely keeps her mouth shut. She tilts her head slightly, inclining that she's giving the drunk all her divided attention. "Her father, Frederick, trained her from the beginning, and damn it, the girl looked like she was ready to lead a revolution. You could just see it in her, and for a while, we all thought that this was going to work, but you know what that girl did?"

When no one speaks, Anna rolls her eyes. "I thought that was a rhetorical question."

The man barks out a laugh before slamming his hand down on the table. "You have a mouth just like Meg, kid." Eugene points a finger right in her face before continuing on. "You watched her Games, didn't you? She fell in love with that idiot Career from One."

Anna nods. "Hercules."

"_Hercules,"_ Eugene mimics, not to mock her but the very name itself. "One moment the whole wide world is watching Meg suck face with the guy, and the next he's got a knife plunged in her throat and she's suddenly choking on her blood." Eugene looks angry, and maybe she can see the young victor in him from twenty or so years ago. "If you're going to do this, kid, I'm asking you not to fuck yourself over by making the same mistake."

"I don't think there's a chance of me going into the arena again, considering my time's over," Anna responds with a slight edge in her tone.

"Shit still happens _outside_ the arena." And now Eugene begins to dish out the wine. "I just want you to stay alive. We'll need that charming, happy face of yours to shoot a couple of propos and lead a couple battles here and there. Nothing more."

Anna's current, stoic expression is probably as far away from charming and happy as she could get. "Fine."

An eyebrow lifts up on Eugene's face. "Just like that?"

"Yeah," she throws back curtly, finalizing her decision because the sooner this fucked up dystopian government ends, the sooner Elsa can stop having her body be used by a multitude of wretched, vile creatures that make up the Capitol's population.

:.

Anna's almost as busy as Elsa is nowadays, her publicist constantly calling her back to the Capitol for another involuntary photo shoot that's sure to be stretched out on one of the billboards that overlook the city, another special appearance on some television show she doesn't even remotely care about, another extremely wealthy citizen's birthday that she has to attend.

But when they can, and they fight tooth and nail to do so, they make time for each other like it's an unspoken golden rule.

Technically, she's supposed to stay in District 2 four a total of seven days this time. Elsa doesn't find that nearly enough time, so she somehow talks Anna into staying for another week...or maybe three. Yet she hasn't heard from her escort, Pisces, in a while, so both she and Anna figure that Snow is letting her on some sort of vacation before she resumes with her duties. Those four weeks are filled with unbridled amusement that's not seen or heard in the Capitol because they attempt to do everything under the sun while she's there.

On some sponsored trip to District 4, Elsa teaches her how to swim. She was friends with Anna's stylist, Ariel, apparently, and had went on quite a few trips to Anna's stylist's home district as a consequence. And while Anna's a very adept first learner, the only part Elsa really remembers vividly is instructing her how to float on her back. ("Ice queen, get your hands off my ass. What you're doing has nothing to do with teaching me shit." Elsa had turned a lovely shade of crimson at that.) Jokes aside, the memory of her fingers splayed over her warm skin would forever be branded in Elsa's mind.

And now, Anna's thigh-deep in the beginnings of the sea, the hemline of her white and red sundress dipping slightly into the waters as she gazes at the glorious sunrise that turns the sky into lines of purples, oranges, pinks, and yellows. Her hair has been braided into two plaits, tickling the ends of her shoulder blades. Her elbows and arms are crossed at her torso, and she's simply inhaling in the breeze she isn't accustomed to anywhere else.

She's so heartbreakingly beautiful that Elsa is unabashed and unashamed to stare at her heedlessly. It's undeniably easy to imagine the two of them in this same scene a couple years down the road; perhaps she's sporting an elegant wedding ring on her finger. She even dares to dream seeing her still standing in that ocean, except that her strawberry blonde hair is sprinkled delicately with grey strands — that is, if they're fortunate enough to even live that long.

"One day," Anna murmurs, breaking their comfortable silence and jolting the platinum blonde away from her fruitless visions of the future. "One day, I'm going to move here — or District Two — and build a house right next to this place. Or the mountains."

Elsa snorts, despite the fact that she wants the same dream _so badly_. "You? Build a house by yourself?" She wrangles her swimming shorts free of the many specks of sands before treading the water. "I'd like to see that happen."

As Anna's jabbing her elbow deep into her side at that comment in petulance, Elsa knows that she won't ever let Anna build a house by herself. If anyone was going to do the work, it was going to be her alone. Maybe if she's allowed to date her properly, when Snow is dead and burned deep to the ground, she can build her a nice house by the mountains and they could live there together.

Imagination gets the better of her once more: a bedroom decorated in the softest hints of baby blue and grey. There are large, casement windows that are always thrown open to let the sun warm their white, canopy bed when they aren't there, making it look like their own little heaven that is basked in pillows and warmth. She'd kiss her awake every morning, peppering even more all over her face and into the crown of her red tresses, possibly drag her from the bed when she's too lazy, and definitely making love to her all the time.

So it is with regret when she hands Anna her bag, the engine of the train rumbling from behind her. Elsa clings onto her tightly as she always does when they're forced to part, her arms practically molding Anna's entire body to her own.

She kisses the temple of her head. "I'll find you when I get to the Capitol." She closes her eyes in a brief moment of bliss as Anna hums in agreement, the sound muffled as she's pressed against her chest before she pushes Elsa away and proceeds to call her a sap.

"I mean, we can even go to our favorite café!" Anna waggles her eyebrows up at Elsa suggestively, her eyes lighting up at the mere mentioning.

Elsa smothers a snort. "It's always food with you, isn't it?"

Sadly, Elsa only whispers the words _I love you_ once she's on the other side of the train doors.

:.

It isn't until she hears the soft tone pilfering the silent air that she loosens up. "Oh, Elsa."

The woman's familiar voice is like a balm that instantly soothes away any mental or physical pains Elsa might have had. Wide eyes still filled with tears, the Capitol's proclaimed sex symbol transforms to the image of heartbreaking when she turns around to Anna.

She had promised to come to her house at the Capitol for their many sleepovers, but she never shows up. It's when she gets a call from a certain Will that has Anna rushing mindlessly to here, to this room where Elsa does her business, where she sees the platinum blonde bunched up atop the bed. She's been told that there are few times throughout the years when Elsa completely breaks down, and this rarity of a moment most likely happens after the last of the many clients finally leave.

"Anna..."

She breathes that one name in a papery murmur, not even bothering to cover her indecency. People may have kissed the ground Anna waltzes on, but Elsa _lives_ for every word spoken by her, every smile breached, because the redhead repeatedly saves her with all those things.

Retaliating to that acknowledgement, Anna responds in the best way possible. The corners of her raspberry-tinted lips curve upward into one of the most beautiful smiles ever to grace her face, a smile in contrast to the wry, amused one she constantly wears when Capitol public entertainment is involved. That smile softens Elsa's heart tremendously, wrapping her whole body in a big fuzzy blanket of alleviating goodness, a warm little bubble that makes her feel cared for and protected and infinitely loved than she has ever felt before.

Because Anna's learned how to smile again whenever she's around. Now she doesn't smile much, but Elsa's still the reason behind most of those infrequent smiles, nonetheless.

Anna continues to smile that extraordinary smile as she proceeds to do what no other had done to her before. Elsa is more than used to her clients ripping the clothes off her body before fucking her, but no one has ever dressed her back while on the job. Still stuck in this sweet oblivion that Anna has intentionally put her in, she only vaguely notices that her tears have come to an abrupt halt. There's the quiet whisper of cloth sliding up her bruised skin before Anna nimbly buttons up the shorts that now hang from her hips.

Elsa barely lets Anna settle herself comfortably on the bed next to her before she all but attacks her. Her arms make a desperate grab for her slender waist, frenetically reeling her in until Anna's practically molded into her, her freckled cheek resting against her chest. The natural fragrance of honeysuckle that always seems to be subtly radiating from her washes away any lingering scents of grating sex and alcohol.

"Will called me," Anna offers it as a simple way of explaining as to why she's actually here. Even though the smile is gone now, there are faint traces of that wonderful expression here and there, and Elsa still looks at the strawberry blonde like she's her only lifeline. "I would have come sooner, you know..." The apology is there without having to be voiced aloud.

Elsa shakes her head, deferring the apology. "You didn't know."

"So this is it?" Her tone timbre is bland, her nose wrinkling in distaste at the lavish room.

"Yeah," Elsa chuckles humorlessly, the sound muffled the clothes covering her torso.

"Lily would always tell me what it was like whenever I asked." Anna tenderly strokes Elsa's soft hair, fluidly averting her gaze to the ceiling when she feels the blonde peer up at her through her lashes. "And...you know, Snow told me he regretted killing my family." Her murmur is too quiet, dipping octaves lower than what was considered normal.

"I didn't think the man was capable of regretting anything," Elsa mutters back near inaudibly, equally as quiet.

The slight vibration of Anna's body indicates that she's laughing. "I could have easily been like you, ice queen, contributing more to his budget as a sex toy. But Snow couldn't use anyone as leverage against me because all my family members were dead. That was his first mistake."

"You still make him a lot of money." And it's true — Anna brings in as much money as Elsa does through other means. Endorsing products she wouldn't usually approve of, acting as meaningless escorts to wealthy citizens at social soirées; et cetera, et cetera.

Anna habitually arches an eyebrow. "Could have been more though."

And the platinum blonde stops her there — the mental image of Anna selling herself like Elsa does on a regular basis scares her most of all.

Catching Anna off guard, Elsa drags the length of her body down until her head shares the same pillow as hers. Anna's fingers tentatively reach out to wipe at Elsa's tear-streaked cheeks, berating herself slightly for thinking that the blonde still looks pretty beautiful even when rendered broken, impalpable pieces inside and out.

Naturally, it that conception makes her think of Lily and what she'd usually say. ("That girl's too beautiful for her own good. Fucking hell, she's prettier than _you,_ Anna.") And then she'll make a semi-offensive remark at how wonderful the two of them would be together and how the Capitol will ecstatic for the couple. Hand still moving about in silky blonde hair, she doesn't at all notice Elsa's eyes deepening in color, pupils dilating, and the way her eyes roam over every crevice of her face as if she's trying to memorize her.

Elsa's hands dip under the hem of her shirt, and Anna's really too deep in thought to be missing how the other victor is touching her — her slim, pale fingers splaying themselves freely against Anna's stomach. The heat radiating from beneath that smooth, freckled skin screams at Elsa to touch Anna all the time, to hold her tight, to kiss every inch of her. Queens need their own heroes too, and while Anna's playing salvation to others, privately being the Mockingjay and all, who's there to save her?

Anna's bright teal eyes widen fractionally when she finally notices Elsa touch her lips to hers.

It lasts approximately three and a half seconds before she pulls away with an awkward _"um,"_ because she quite can't possibly believe that this woman is actually attempting to kiss her. Before Anna has the chance to tumble off the bed, Elsa lowly growls at her — actually _growls_ at her — and Anna finds herself pinned tightly between the mattress and the front of the blonde's lithe body. The hands digging into her hipbones prevent her from escaping while the lips on hers are relentless in their ravaging.

But Anna doesn't want to hurt Elsa even more by fighting her — those purple bruises look particularly nasty, making her so very outraged that Elsa's been treated this way for four or more years — so Anna reluctantly complies to kisses that should make any other person swoon at the gratifying intensity behind them. However, she does feel a certain pleasure shoot up her spine when Elsa starts suckling at her bottom lip.

Elsa isn't drunk off her mind like she usually is for her many appointments, implicating that this is all done on a clean conscience. Her hands slide hotly against Anna's flat stomach, stroking rhythmic circles around her navel. Anna's heavy eyelids gravitate back to the ceiling when Elsa leaves her lips only to travel down the arched column of her neck.

Maybe the blonde _really _does know what she's doing, all considering the fact that a nearly imperceptible noise of approval sprouts from Anna as Elsa gently takes some of her freckled skin into her mouth before sucking on it rather hard. And then her tongue is on Anna's skin again, lapping at the new bruise in apology for biting too hard. They're breaching dangerous territory now, and Anna _really_ doesn't want anything else to occur other than kissing or whatever this is, especially when Elsa's hand trails down to unbutton her shorts —

"No." Anna pulls away from the platinum blonde completely, detaching her neck from Elsa's velvet mouth and swiftly rolling across the canvas of the large bed until she's practically teetering over the curved edge. "Anything but that, okay?"

Elsa tries not to feel too frustrated by Anna's numbing rejection. "Why? What's wrong?"

"I don't want to sleep with you," Anna throws back in her trademark blatant way, efficiently hurting her feelings in the process, but it is by no means intentional. The beginnings of an affliction expression make their way onto Elsa's face and she quickly does her best to amend the situation so that the quivering platinum blonde doesn't break again. "We could kiss again if you'd like..."

_If you'd like._ Like Anna has no choice in the matter and she's doing all she can to appease _her_...

"...Oh, _god."_ Elsa swallows into her dry throat, backing up to the headboard in panic. She looks at Anna — who's already lost so much — and Christ, she can't believe that she nearly forced Anna to engage in something that she wanted without even asking her.

"I didn't mean...I didn't..." she stammers, unable to manage a comprehensible sentence, because —

This doesn't make her any better than the Capitol citizens that seek her company during the night. Elsa's mother has taught every single good value and moral that she knows, but_none_ of them has to do anything with rape. Her face visibly pales, losing all remote color, as she remembers that Anna did try to resist her from the beginning until she grabbed her and smothered her body against the mattress.

She had almost raped her.

As Elsa's acknowledging her dark reality, the wheels are turning frantically in Anna's head. Comprehension slowly dawns on her face as she recognizes the full connotation of her words.

"Shit — wait, no, it wasn't like that, Elsa," she rapidly responds to the sick pallor of Elsa's face, cautiously reaching for her only to watch as she presses more fully against the headboard. Something gnaws in Anna at the sight of Elsa looking like a frightened kitten. "You didn't —"

But Anna isn't granted the opportunity to explain exactly what Elsa did or didn't do, because Elsa jumps from the bed and shakily buttons back together the shorts that sit low on her hips. Trembling with self-hatred, she throws on a bra in the last second and bolts from the room, not even bothering to find the rest of her clothes or put on her shoes.

She's no better than Snow or the rest of them.

:.

"Have you seen Elsa?" Anna tugs at Will's arm when they happen to be in the same studio together.

It's been three weeks since "the kissing incident." She hates labels, but she doesn't know what else to call it.

Will gives her a gentle look, which she immediately hates, before he touches her cheek. "Anna," he leans down to whisper quietly in the crevice of her ear. "Idunn's dead."

And it's a good thing Will's holding her because Anna may have fallen to her knees right then and there.

-—

**part the fifth** :: you say you want a revolution

She finds Elsa sitting right next to the edges of a mountain, a rocky and craggy spot that's dusty and all-around inhospitable. Her knees are held close to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them. She looks _small_ and it worries Anna greatly at the fact that she's just staring at everything and nothing in particular.

She's slowly rocking himself back forth, and no one can blame Elsa Vetr for looking slightly lifeless in that moment. It's to the point where not even the proximity to the beautiful mountains look like it will be able to heal her. Elsa doesn't even look up at the sound of Anna's feet padding quietly in the dirt, nor does she acknowledge her outright when she cautiously sinks down right beside her.

Besides President Snow, they're the only ones who know why Idunn is dead. Elsa has been warned that there would be repercussions if she's suddenly made herself unavailable to the Capitol citizens, and she's done that a _lot_ since Anna's entered the picture. Kissing Anna was the pushing point, and of course, Snow found out and issued for her sweet mother's murder. Despite what has happened or whatever Anna's thinking right now, Elsa doesn't at all regret kissing her.

Her ice-blue eyes close at the sudden breeze that wafts across her cheekbones. It reminds her of her mother kissing her cheeks, and she's shocked that she doesn't feel the burning sensation of tears prickling at her eyes while thinking of Idunn. (Is it because Anna is here, or is it because she has cried too much already?) Elsa turns her head and presses her face into Anna's neck. _Inhale and exhale. One-two, one-two, one-two._ Anna smells nice. She always smells nice. _Inhale and exhale. One-two, one-two, one-two._ The tip of Elsa's nose skims her jaw, silently seeking comfort.

Anna wraps an arm around Elsa's slim shoulders and lets her chin drop to rest against her blonde head.

Anna assumes that time passes, though she's not really sure.

"Does this mean you're free?" Anna finally asks two, three, four — who really knows? — hours later. Her arm's getting a little sore from hugging Elsa so close to her for so long, but she never once complains. "You don't have to take in clients anymore, right?" _All your family members are dead._ Yet, saying that out loud will make her feel like a total asshole.

Elsa doesn't lift her face from Anna's neck. "Hans, remember?"

_The same brother that doesn't even want to see you? The same brother that blames you for both your parents' deaths, even though it wasn't even your fault to begin with, ice queen? The one that hates you? Really, you're _still_ protecting him?_

Because Anna isn't sure if she would have done the same.

:.

The next and possibly last time Anna sees Elsa is during the Quarter Quell. They're in the arena, and Shang's intent on destroying the arena like Anna had done two years ago and the memories keep coming to her —

(..._Ariel's dead because she's made a special dress for Anna. One that started sparking halfway through her interview with Caesar Flickerman, one that cackles with electricity until that pretty little yellow dress rips and shreds away into the gown of the Mockingjay..._

_...eighty-nine year old Kylie of District 1 volunteering for a bedraggled blond-haired woman who keeps screaming during the reaping..._

_...Aladdin of District 6 attempting to kill her with a spear..._

_...Elsa desperately sneaking secret kisses with her before the Seventy-fifth Games start because any one of those might be their last..._)

She's torn away from Elsa's arms as the arena explodes...and they're both going in two completely directions.

The hovercraft that saves Elsa also includes Eugene, Shang, Aladdin, Will, and the former Head Gamemaker, Agdar.

The hovercraft that "saves" Anna has a bunch of Peacekeepers and Alice.

:.

Will, Shang, _and_ Aladdin all have to physically restrain Elsa from punching that fucking drunk in the face again.

"She's the fucking _Mockingjay!_" she screams somewhere underneath Will and Shang from where they've pinned him to the floor of the hovercraft. She thrashes like a wild animal underneath the weight by mass atop him. "How can Anna be the face of the rebellion when you let the Capitol take her, you _dumb_ little fuck!"

Eugene is yelling things at Elsa too, but there's blood all over his now swollen face, so it makes the younger woman from District 2 feel only slighter better. She's saying that they're going to get Anna and Alice back —

And, oops, that's the second slip-up Eugene has made because Will doesn't know that Alice, _his_ Alice's been taken yet.

"_What?" _Will snarls, and he's not even holding Elsa down anymore because Eugene suddenly looks like a target for his clenched fist.

Elsa slips out of Aladdin and Shang's holds, ducking nimbly at those who are trying to grab her, and she tackles Eugene to the floor, despite being much smaller than him. Will beating the crap out of Eugene with him only justifies that the drunk fool has made a deadly mistake. Once Will's hands close around the old man's throat, the hovercraft crew composed of District 13 all need to separate the three victors.

:.

She can hear Alice's screams from her tiny cell room here at the Capitol, so much that it's permanently embedded in her brain. She hasn't even known the girl for very long, not by a margin anyhow, but her mind's already thinking_AliceAliceAliceAliceALICE_...

Where was Elsa? Was she okay? Christ, do they have her too somewhere in another cell?

_Alice...Alice...Alice — oh, look, there's a light. A woman...is it Elsa?_

"Good evening, Miss Arendelle."

_No, it's not. Don't be stupid, Anna._

:.

That leader of District 13 is a woman with silver eyes and white hair — President Coin. But no matter how much she claims she's trying to achieve better for Panem, no matter how much the citizens of the underground district respect this woman, one look in her eyes and Elsa already knows that she's almost exactly like Snow — ruthless, power-hungry, and vindictive.

They've assigned Elsa to therapy because she keeps tying and retying these damn _knots._ She doesn't exactly listen to the doctors' orders, only answering when she ultimately has to, and continues to tie together some really complicated knot that her mentor had taught her before she ever entered the Hunger Games. No one can do this knot but her, and she thinks that Anna will be really proud of her if she gets the chance to show it to her. If only she'd walk through those doors that keep Elsa confined in her, it'll all be fine.

"Miss Vetr?" _Huh?_ Elsa's mother is dead. Who's calling for Idunn? "Miss Vetr, ma'am?"

She makes a loop with the knot before pulling. "Yes?"

Elsa mumbles this when she realizes the inquiry was for her, never taking her eyes off of her makeshift artwork because Anna might come in and she needs to be the one to show it to her. And _no,_ she's not crazy. With hooded orbs, she slowly lifts her eyes to meet the gaze of one with green-blue eyes —

"Anna?"

"No," the little blonde boy shakes his head with a sad look on his adorable face. "That's my sissy."

Elsa clutches the knots with her white-knuckled, bony hands. "Olaf..." se breathes like she can't believe it, because this six year-old boy is supposed to have been _dead_ for two years now. "How — how long have you been here, Olaf?"

Olaf's face contorts into a thinking expression. "Since Anna won the Games."

"And you've been here this entire time?"

"Yeah," Olaf nods, fidgeting nervously with his small hands. "I said that I wanted to wait for Anna 'cause she promised that she would come home, but the people wouldn't let me stay. Mr. F said you know her."

"Mr. F?" Elsa parrots with a slightly confused expression.

"Mr. Fitz...Fitzher...um, Fizzerb...?"

"Eugene," Elsa supplies helpfully, the corner of her lips lifting upward for the first time since he's arrived to this place. Fingers tightening over the knot, she continues, "Is your mother here too?"

For a brief moment, Olaf looks as though he's about to burst into tears. Water swirling in those abysses of otherwise placid, ocean-green yonder, it makes Elsa think of how she's never seen Anna cry in all the time she's known her. "Mommy died in the fire," the boy says quietly. "The people were too late."

"Hmm," Elsa hums soothingly, her smile turning brighter for Olaf. "My mother died too."

"Yeah?" Those eyes..._oh, Anna, I miss you. So much._

"Yeah."

:.

Anna pinches her elbow with her nails as she takes a seat. "Thank you for having me, Caesar."

"Of course," the man, whose hair changes every year, reaches out to pat at her cold hand. She almost recoils at the touch and has to stop herself from blathering out a name that's somewhere between _Elsa_ and _Alice._ "It must be hard for you, knowing that most of your friends are behind the rebellion that is currently taking place."

"Yes." She has to lie — she can't say that she's the Mockingjay because Alice will die if she does such a thing. She would have been fine with regular torture, but putting someone like Alice against her, where the poor girl's life was in Anna's hands...she's stuck.

"And Kristoff Bjorgman," Caesar prods forward, unaware that her nails of dug deep into her elbow at this point. "He's never been in the Games, but he was a friends of yours in District Five, yes?" She nods stiffly. "Did you know that he was deeply involved too?"

She blinks owlishly at the strange-looking interviewer. "No, I didn't. I honestly don't understand why they would go against the Capitol like this" — _this is all scripted, please don't believe a word of this, Elsa_ — "you've seen the news, haven't you, Caesar? These rebels are doing so much damage to the districts: innocent people are dying, a derailed train that used to be filled with highly toxic waste is now spilling all over district soil, there are unnecessary bomb droppings everywhere...the rebels don't see that this isn't helping anyone."

Caesar moves his head up and down in complacency. "I suppose you are calling a cease-fire then, my dear?"

"I...I do believe that a cease-fire would benefit Panem as a whole..." — _no, no, no! Don't forget your script, Anna, because Alice will die and Will will get so so so mad at you and Elsa will never _ever_ come save you and Snow will keep drugging you with poison, and if Olaf was still alive _—

"Anna?" Caesar leans in and peers at her vacant face in concern. "Anna, are you alright?"

"Um...I don't..."

The pale, waifish-like girl in the pretty green dress fumbles with her fingers, trying to restrain her jerky movements atop her lap. Honestly, she doesn't remember how she got this way. There had been a table, and tiny needles were poking into her skin, but the real pain didn't start until the roar of the machines turned on, when the green fluids start to flow into her blood veins. Oh, and Alice's screaming from a different room, though she still hears it because the blonde girl never fucking _stops_.

"Anna?"

She sees the frown start to develop on Snow's face to the right of the cameras. "Right, sorry, Caesar," she amends with a bright smile, seeming so outwardly bipolar. Her body inches towards the main camera for dramatic effect, just like Snow's told her to do. "Will, Lily, Kristoff, Elsa...how do you think this will end? What will be left? No one's safe. Not in the Capitol, not in the districts" — she inhales rather sharply, pressing the heel of her hand against her knee to still her shaking leg — "all of you in Thirteen — you'll be _dead_ by morning."

Something's happening, she's not quite sure, but she hopes that they'll all forgive for lying. She's failed just like Megara, but only worse. She's a bad, bad, _bad_ Mockingjay — and suddenly, the screen behind Anna pops up with a clip of Elsa.

"Elsa?" She whispers the name like a prayer, inaudible to everyone but herself.

"_...such a young man when he rose to power. Such a clever one to keep it. How did Snow do it? _Poison." That's Elsa's voice that's filling up the entire studio! The same flawless voice that lulls her to sleep, makes her think of winter and craggy mountains and the wind and the sky. "_He even drank the poison himself to deflect suspicion._ _That's why he's always wearing roses that reek of perfume...they cover the scent of blood from his mouth sores —"_

"Turn the camera _off!_" And that's President Snow screaming bloody murder at the crew the shut the whole interview down.

Anna remembers someone knocking the camera off the stand, another someone tackling her body right out of the couch before her world, for what seems to be the millionth time during her stay in this living hell, fades to black.

:.

Olaf Arendelle is the first to scream the minute Shang ends his interception of the interview. Small tears cling to his eyelashes as he runs away from Jasmine, the cute brown-skinned girl who's been Olaf's best friend since his first arrival here to Thirteen, and Elsa has to grab the boy and hold him to prevent him from crashing wholesomely into the large TV screen in the center of the room. Elsa has to hold him because if she doesn't, she's afraid that he's going to kill Coin for not doing shit to prevent any of this from happening.

"They _hurt_ her," Olaf murmurs against Elsa's shoulders. "They hurt Anna, Elsa."

Elsa grips her ball of knots in one hand, but the other arm is firmly pressed around Olaf's back, holding the boy tightly. She wants nothing more than to break down and lock herself in the nearest storage closet. Anna's been hurt and Elsa's _failed_ her because it looks like they've been torturing her for a long while. She looks noticeably tiny while sitting in that plushy couch, and Elsa can just imagine tucking Anna's shaking body into her arms before whisking her away somewhere — where Anna can be a tree and Elsa will be a bird and they'll be _happy_.

A pale-faced Agdar comes to stand by Elsa, his hand reaching out to stroke his son's hair. Olaf doesn't know that Agdar is his father, and both he and Elsa know that the elder won't be telling the little boy anytime soon. That hand stops in midair, dropping limply to his side.

"Do you care now?" Elsa narrows her eyes brutally at the former Head Gamemaker.

Agdar mumbles something to himself, but it sounds a lot like: _I've always cared_. The man makes eye contact with Kristoff from across the room, sharing a meaningful gaze before they nod curtly to each other.

"Tomorrow," Agdar tells Elsa, and that's the only thing he has to say to the blue-eyed victor.

It doesn't matter if people in District 13 whisper about Elsa, about the devastatingly beautiful woman who's gone absolutely crazy and likes to tie knots over and over, because they're going to battle tomorrow. And Elsa will be at the forefront of it all.

:.

"Anna, look at me," President Snow demands, his voice quiet and poisonous as a snake, "and tell me your full name."

He enjoys playing this sick game all the time, verily liking the way he's slowly breaking Anna in the same way he's done to so many others in the past. They've just finished their routinely work of pouring aching poison into her body, and vaguely, she knows that this must be the awful form of brainwashing she's only ever heard about in horror stories in her district.

Those stories are just to scare little children to sleep, but Anna's been through this procedure so many times that she's stopped registering in the numbing pain that settles in after her fifth or sixth time. (_Elsa where are you red is the image of little children lying dead in the cold snow Elsa are you dead Elsa who are you?_) She's so close to that cliff, _so close,_ nearly there and tumbling _off —_

"My name is Anna Arendelle." Her voice is mechanical, obviously scripted. "I am eighteen years old. I am a victor from the Seventy-second Hunger Games and it has been an honor and a privilege serving the Capitol since my victory. The rebellion is my entirely fault because I blew up the arena during my Games. I should not have blown it up, and I am terribly sorry for all the damage I have caused. I am forever loyal to the Capitol, to President Snow, and should anyone ask, I am not the Mockingjay."

She grips the edges of the bed, the very bed that had her body writhing on top of as they struck needles inside her a few minutes prior, and patiently waits for the last part of her recitation. It's the worst part to say, _because because because_.

"And?" It's immoral the way Snow smiles at her in that moment; however, she doesn't exactly see things anymore. She stares off into space, creeping closer and closer to resembling the mad Alice by the daunting minute.

"I hate Elsa Vetr," she lets it flow effortlessly, but a huge part of her doesn't even know who this Elsa Vetr is anymore. The Capitol's done it — they made her forget. "I do not love her and I never will. She should die along with the revolution."

Why do they keep making her talk about Elsa Vetr? Who is she and _why —_

"Very good," Snow's awful voice croons, and Anna's gaze is lost to the limbo once more. In her fragmented mind, she wonders if Alice is willing to invite this teal-eyed girl to her mad little tea party of hers. She hopes they serve black tea lemonade. She loves black tea lemonade.

President Snow sets a plate of delicious food on Anna's folded legs, accompanied with a silver fork and spoon. It's a five-star meal, one she hasn't eaten since before the Quarter Quell, which seems infinitely long ago. He's rewarding her for turning crazy.

"Miss Alice is dead," he tells her when she puts a piece of the sauced steak in her mouth. When she doesn't flinch at the news, he frowns ever so slightly, but he presses on. "You can tell, can't you? It's awfully quiet around here without our blonde companion."

Alice means Will and Will means Lily —

"You've done quite well, Miss Arendelle," Snow watches the languid way she eats. "The Capitol officials and I have agreed that it is safe to air out another interview. Tying up loose ends from the last one. What do you say, hmm? A pretty green dress will do..."

_EugeneAgdarShangWillRachelKristoffBelleJosephineIdunnLily _—

Names she knows but has no face to match them with.

"...mustn't be like last time. I'll have to make sure there won't be any interceptions this time..."

_(The sound of Peacekeepers running outside all around the city. People dying people screaming and the battle has already begun without her while the president is still going on and on about an interview...?)_

And...Elsa Vetr?

Throwing her dish out from her lap, Anna swiftly grabs the wires that are always tucked under the bed and throws herself at Snow's smaller form. She bats his hands away with a strength that's been subdued since her arrival in the Capitol. These are the wires with the miniscule sharp needles on them, the ones to poke into her white skin and line it with red dots to poison her. Elbowing the man roughly in the gut, she quickly coils the wires around his neck, wrapping it around and around until the ends are short.

Her fingers, not shaking but _strong_, grab at those ends and she yanks it until they close around Cronus Snow's neck steadfastly. She keeps pulling, registering in the choking gasps of the man beneath her as the needles drive themselves into the surface of his skin. His blood — like the pretty roses — is starting to coat along the fibers of the wires and it's dripping to pool on the marble floors. The crimson liquid reminds her of Alice's pretty curly hair and the wires around his neck are beginning to look like a bloody scarf.

Snow dies looking into her eyes, looking into _Olaf's_ eyes.

-—

**part the sixth** :: reprise

The City Circle of the Capitol is full of horrible stragglers.

Elsa's killed many people today with the gun held to her chest, but the majority of them are the Peacekeepers and the Capitol officiates that have brought Panem to ruin. She's still frozen from the concept that Coin has willingly set bombs on innocent _children_, bombs that have inadvertently been developed by Kristoff because the blonde man had believed that they would be used for other things. Elsa hasn't brought her knots with her, so she can't compulsively tie them when she feels like she's teetering on the brink of insanity.

She's just _looking_ for a sign, anything at all. Long strands of strawberry blonde hair, either free-flowing or tied in two long braids. A slender figure, perhaps turned painfully thin by her time in the Capitol. Eyes that can light up an entire city with just one look. Freckles that adorn the upper cheeks and the bridge of her nose. _A smile as bright as the sun._ Elsa probably looks like a maniac with her hair all mussed up by her fingers, said fingers having threatened to rip the long blonde strands out hundreds of times that day. She's pushed people out of the way uncaringly, running after numerous hordes of familiar women only to find that they aren't at all Anna Arendelle.

And then Anna's just _there_. By the rubble of dirt that used to be one of the Capitol's largest fountains.

In a blink of an eyes, Elsa's right in front of her, abruptly surrounding Anna with her warmth. Elsa shakes and burrows her nose deep into Anna's neck, trying and failing to keep the tears from splattering freckled skin. The gun drops from her other hand as she curves her fingers around Anna's small hips, promptly lifting her weightless body off the floor so that her feet are dangling. But Elsa notices a little too late that Anna's arms are still stretched past her awkwardly, not twining at the nape of her neck like they should be.

Realizing that she's not responding in anyway, Elsa gently sets her down and pulls away. Her quivering hands push the hair out of Anna's miraculously unmarked face to reveal slightly widened eyes, and she feels sick to the stomach. It's the look of a _stranger _—

She clears her throat. "Are you...are you...Belle?"

Elsa's entire world crumbles.

"No..." Elsa manages to shake her head through her shock and distress, pushing back Anna's hair again. "No. No. I'm _Elsa_," she murmurs, biting back the desperate hint that's waiting to taint her voice. "Your ice queen, remember? Elsa and Anna forever..."

"Elsa," Anna tests the name like she's never said it before, voice sounding throaty because she's been screaming a whole lot. "Vetr?"

She nods, her tone a mere croak. "Yeah."

The strawberry blonde looks at the woman in front of her, tilting her head to the side. She looks so _sad_ now, a complete turn-around from whence she's attacked her with that powerful embrace moments beforehand. Anna doesn't like the fact that she's hurting her, because hasn't she hurt enough people? She's killed Alice and she's killed Olaf, and, well, those two are the only people she knows right now, but she's sure she's killed more people than that.

"Anna —"

Her name touches something inside her, shooting her off like a canon.

"My name is Anna Arendelle. I am eighteen years old. I am a victor from the Seventy-second Hunger Games and it has been an honor and a privilege serving the Capitol since my victory. The rebellion is my entirely fault because I blew up the arena during my Games. I should not have blown it up and I am terribly sorry for all the damage I have caused. I am forever loyal to the Capitol, to President Snow, and should anyone ask, I am not —"

"No, no, no, shush, no," Elsa murmurs to her, peppering kisses at her forehead and her cheeks. Her heart breaks at the robotic monologue, twisting and gutting him all in one fluid motion. God, she can't even imagine what else they've done to her.

"...the Mockingjay," Anna finishes quietly, but it doesn't make sense because it's been broken off from the rest of her sentence. Should she start over? Bad things to happen when she refuses to do so. "My name is Anna Arendelle. I am eighteen years old. I am a victor from —"

She stops in place, her teal eyes widening further, because the erratic shaking of Elsa's shoulders signal that the blonde is about to cry.

Glistening little diamonds cling to those light lashes of hers as she presses her forehead against Anna's. Her expression is heart-shatteringly pained, eyebrows furrowed and eyes clenched tight together. Elsa's nose brushes against Anna's tenderly, her trembling hands falling down her face so that her fingers are inches away from cupping the front columns of her neck. They continue to shake in place, and when Anna makes the decision to slide her own hands up to wrap around her frail wrists, stilling the quivering, Elsa _breaks._

The two of them are stuck in that position for a while, Elsa unable to look at Anna while Anna can barely take her eyes off of Elsa. The tears cascade down the platinum blonde's cheeks in slender rivulets, and Anna can't help but push those tears away with her cold thumbs._ I've done this before,_ she thinks, wiping Elsa's tears away. She can't explain it, but she knows she's been here before.

Something propels her to fully lean on her tiptoes to kiss her.

And she doesn't know why she does it, but —

"_If you can be anything at all, what would you be?_

"_A tree."_

Anna _does_ know her and she knows that this blonde, this Elsa Vetr, means something remarkably important to her. And she's willing to find out. Elsa's touch doesn't make her want to flinch away, because she understands that this is just a _beautiful possibility between them that's about to be conceived_. Or maybe it already has.

Elsa breaks the kiss reluctantly, only to mouth her way over to Anna's jawbone.

"I'm so sorry," Elsa whispers against her skin, pressing her body tighter against Anna's because she's the only one that belongs there. "I wanted to come for you and I was about to —" The whispers ends harshly and Elsa is back to methodically stroking her red hair. "It's okay if you don't know who I am, because I'll help you remember, okay? I'll fix you with everything I have, Anna. We'll build that house in District Two — or Four, whichever you want — the mountains and the ocean — next to Will and Alice —"

"Alice?" Anna repeats in a slightly startled manner. The mentioning of Alice reminds of the Capitol, and she's about to sprout out the monologue all over again before Elsa cuts her off.

"Olaf and Alice — they're both alive. They're _alive, _Anna. Alice was taken away. They're both in District Thirteen."

_Please react. Please react. Please react._

So Elsa's spirit soars at the beautiful smile that _does_ finally stretch across Anna's face. She grins back and kisses the strawberry blonde's nose. "Remember that house we were planning on building by the mountains, or the beach? I'll build it for you and Olaf can stay with us. You don't have to worry about anything anymore, Anna, because it's over." She leans in and drops an even gentler kiss on her lips.

Elsa parts an inch away only to say quietly, "I'll love you enough for both of us."

_Elsa and Anna forever. _Anna's blue eyes brighten and the tips of her right fingers reach up to touch Elsa's cheeks.

She's going to walk into this blindly, to trust in this woman she doesn't at all know, but intuitively _does_.

"...Anna?" Elsa whispers, and it's clear that she's pleading for an answer. She grasps Anna's hand, blue eyes staring into her own. They're swirling with both fear and hope, love and loss, and Anna doesn't think she has ever seen a more beautiful sight in her life.

Anna doesn't kiss her. Kisses, after all, could be given out simply and easily, with a brief and minimal touch of their lips. Hugs she considers so much more intimate, so much _closer_ — they were something special.

So Anna flings open her arms and wraps Elsa in a crushingly warm hug, burying her nose into the blonde's warm shoulder. And she whispers, "Okay."

"...Okay?" Elsa breathes.

Anna's smile is as bright as the sun.

"I believe you."

* * *

**the end**


End file.
